Hot Pursuit
by Qweb
Summary: Five-0 investigates a series of school arson fires. Lots of heat. Lots of pursuit. Action, whump, humor and more. Set in mid-season 3.
1. Hot Pursuit

_Author's Note: OK, it's not entirely finished, but I think I've linked up all the clues, so I can start posting. Today was hell at work, so I need some review love.  
In "Hot Pursuit," you can expect lots of heat and lots of pursuit. It features mostly the original four and my usual basic theme: Steve saves Danny, Danny saves Steve.  
Set during Season 3 sometime after Episode 10, the Aloha Girls episode._

* * *

**Hot Pursuit**

**Chapter 1: Hot Pursuit**

Lights flashing, siren howling, Honolulu Fire Department Engine 68 roared along the highway. It's bull-like blaring horn chasing cars from its path. Pacing the emergency vehicle were two Honolulu Police cars and a silver Camaro with red and blue lights flashing in its grille.

But the police cars were not escorting the fire engine. Oh, no.

"What kind of dimwit steals a fire engine?" Detective Danny Williams yelled at his partner, Steve McGarrett, the driver of the silver Camaro and the head of Five-0, the governor's special crime-fighting task force.

"I'm going to get ahead of them and cut them off," Steve said with determination.

"No! Don't you realize what that is?"

"It's a fire truck," Steve said, with an unsaid "duh!" heavy in his tone of voice.

"A fire truck? It's a custom-made, combination pumper-ladder with 700 gallons of water storage built by 4 Guys Inc., of Pennsylvania. It cost more than $600,000, not counting onboard equipment such as the Jaws of Life that we're going to need if you try to cut off a 14-ton fire engine!"

Steve would have stared at Danny with his mouth agape, if he hadn't been driving the Camaro in hot pursuit of a stolen fire engine.

"When did you become such an expert in fire trucks?"

"My father."

"Right, the retired firefighter," Steve remembered.

"Semi-retired. He's working in procurement for a small town that's trying to raise money to buy a new engine. I've learned more about fire engines than I ever intended, but you don't need to be an expert to see that this one is new. It's expensive. And it's a lot bigger than my car!"

Steve's phone rang. Before Steve could take his hands off the wheel, Danny snatched the phone and turned it to speaker. Even with the volume full blast, they could hardly make out Chin's voice — what with the roar of multiple engines, the wail of multiple sirens and the deep-throated bellowing horn of Engine 68.

"Chin, I hope you've got some idea how to stop this thing," Steve yelled. "Danny's all worried about scratching its paint."

"McGarrett!" yelled a familiar voice that wasn't Chin Ho Kelly. "If you so much as dent a fender on our new baby I'll leave you stuck in the next hole I find you in!"

Firefighter Engineer Mickey Harnett had — literally — pulled Steve out of a pit of murky death, not to mention unearthing Danny after an avalanche of sand.

"Where'd you come from?" Danny asked.

"Someone's got to drive the engine back," Chin answered, calmly reclaiming his phone. Then he instructed, "Force him left on Aroma Drive, Steve."

"Toward the dump?" Danny asked.

"Landfill, please," Kono Kalakaua replied in as snooty a voice she could manage, while shouting at Chin's phone and piloting her red Cruze on a route that paralleled the Camaro's. "Our cousins call it a landfill."

"Landfill it is," Steve agreed. He didn't know what Chin had in mind, but he trusted his colleague.

The Camaro and the two police cars surged forward, crowding the fire engine toward the side of the road. The engine moved away from them, taking the sweeping turn up to the landfill. There was one side-road, but a red Cruze blocked the way and the fire engine continued up the hill. Two heavily loaded trash trucks drove shoulder to shoulder up the road, preventing anyone from passing. A stationary roadblock might have caused the fire engine to swerve off the road, but the rolling roadblock slowed, forcing the fire truck to slow, also. The trash haulers halted and two hefty Hawaiian drivers climbed out. Facing the halted fire engine with arms crossed.

The teenage car thieves leaped out, poised to flee on foot.

"Don't. Just, don't," Danny warned.

The boys looked around and saw four uniformed police officers and two plainclothes detectives pointing guns in their direction. A red Cruze pulled up adding to their opponents with two more officers and an angry firefighter. Giggling gleefully, the teens raised their hands.

"It was totally worth it," said the brown-haired white teen. "Best joy ride ever!"

"How many lives was your joy ride worth?" Harnett growled, his Texas background showing in his voice when he was stressed. He pushed past the now handcuffed youths to check over the HFD's newest engine.

Two inches taller than McGarrett, Michael "Mick" Harnett was built like a superhero with a square jaw and steady brown eyes. He was not overly muscled, but was solid and powerful without an ounce of excess fat. He had an undeniable air of authority that was utterly reassuring when you were in trouble — as Danny and Steve knew from personal experience. He was tall and rangy and looked like what you imagined a Texan should look like. He even had a hint of the accent, though he'd only lived there for a few years while his father was stationed at Fort Hood.

At the moment, Harnett was beside himself with anger and relief, as he walked all around Engine 68. The fireman hadn't had a chance to admire the new engine before it was stolen. The manufacturer's representative drove it up to the station. Before the crew could assemble, two teenagers passing by spotted the keys in the ignition and took off with the multimillion-dollar machine. The only glimpse Harnett had gotten was the back end of the big yellow truck fishtailing around the corner. He patted it in relief, seeing it was unharmed.

"Aw, we didn't hurt anyone," scoffed the black-haired Asian youth.

"How many people are at risk if this engine isn't available to answer a call?" Harnett said.

The youth's smart-aleck answer was interrupted by a call over the engine's still active radio. It was a fire at Manoa Elementary School. Everyone tensed. The Asian youth went whiter than his Caucasian companion. "Manoa! My aunt works at Manoa Elementary."

"That's the third elementary school this week," Danny said grimly.

The first fire had been more smoke than anything, giving the students an unexpected three days off while clean up took place. The second caused serious damage, giving the students a serious fright and closing an entire wing of the school. When both fires were found to be arson, the governor sent Five-0 to investigate.

They had been on their way to consult with the arson squad, when they were detoured by the stolen fire engine. At first they thought it might relate to the arson fires, but now that didn't seem likely.

Everyone had tensed in anger and a need to rush to rescue children at Manoa — everyone but Danny. "At least this time school's out," the detective said.

The Five-0 team relaxed. Trust Daddy Danny to know the school schedule, even if his daughter went to private school.

"Are you sure?" Harnett asked.

"It's a teacher training day," Danny answered with certainty. "Teachers are there, but no kids." As if to confirm, the HFD radio reported that the school was closed, but the fire was well involved. The whole school was threatened. A second alarm went out.

"McGarrett! We need this engine back," Harnett practically begged.

"I'm coming with you!" Steve announced. He gave the others a quick grin. "Got to keep an eye on the evidence," he said, patting the engine's gleaming yellow flank.

"You just want to ride the fire engine, boss," Kono said jealously.

Chin took her car keys out of her hand and tipped his head toward the engine. "Someone's got to keep an eye on McGarrett," the lieutenant said.

Kono grinned, then remembered this was serious. People might be in danger. But still, she was going to ride to the rescue in a fire engine! She leaped in the back seat.

"You want to go, too?" Chin asked Danny.

"Nah," said the firefighter's son. "Been there, done that. Besides, this way I get to drive my own car."

**To be continued**

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_A/N: Fire engine specs are based on an article from a newspaper website tricities dot com about Bristol, Tenn., getting a new engine. Any resemblance to any actual HFD engine is purely accidental._

_Harnett made his first appearance in my story "Charades" and appeared most recently in "Stormy Weather." At that time he drove a rescue truck, but he's since been promoted to engineer and drives the big fire engine._


	2. A Fresh Fire Scene

**Chapter 2: A Fresh Fire Scene**

Lights flashing, siren howling, Honolulu Fire Department Engine 68 roared along the highway. The big yellow machine's bull-like blaring horn chased cars from its path. Pacing the emergency vehicle were a Honolulu Police car, a silver Camaro with red and blue lights flashing in its grille and a fire engine red Chevy Cruze, also with flashing lights and siren.

This time the police cars were escorting the no-longer-stolen engine.

In the front passenger seat of the fire engine, Steve McGarrett grinned like a maniac, feeling the power of the massive vehicle. Isn't it every boy's dream to ride a screaming fire truck? The only thing better would be to drive it and, based on the fierce concentration on Engineer Mick Harnett's face, driving the monster wasn't an easy task.

In the second seat, Kono whooped and shared a grin with her boss. Hey, even girls dream about racing fire engines.

Mickey slowed as he approached the burning school. "Everybody out!" he ordered. "I need some real firemen."

As the Five-0 pair jumped out, firefighters with "68" badges left their old engine and ran to the newer one with its more powerful pump.

"Thanks for getting it back," yelled one man whose name badge read "Bacadi," as he and another fireman grabbed the nozzles of neatly folded hoses and leaped down. Harnett pulled the engine forward slowly, laying down the hose, then the engineer jumped out to hook the pumper up to a fire hydrant.

The south wing of the school seemed to be fully involved, flames licking from windows and black smoke belching into the sky. Teachers and administrators stood around, watching in shock, hugging themselves and chattering like school kids. TV news people were mingling with them, trailing camera crews behind them, while newspaper reporters and photographers scribbled and clicked. Police officers were hustling the bystanders aside, so the firemen could do their jobs.

"We'd better get out of the way," Steve said.

He and Kono jogged over to where Danny and Chin had parked at a safe distance next to an HFD car that belonged to the fire investigation unit. A technician was pulling gear out of the trunk, while his supervisor planned their investigation.

"Not exactly where we planned to meet, commander," Captain Rafael Garcia said.

Steve regarded the black smoke pouring out of the school. "Sometimes things come up, captain," he said.

"Listen, can we reschedule?" Garcia asked. "We've got a fresh scene here and, now that we know what we're looking for, maybe Bronson and I can confirm our theory about the ignition source."

"How long do you need?"

"They're getting a handle on the fire now," Danny said, just as Garcia said much the same thing. Both men were looking at the smoke, which was changing from black to white as Engine 68 added its water to the battle. That indicated smoke was turning to steam.

Garcia gave Danny a nod. "The new pumper really turned the tide." Then to Steve, the fire investigator said, "I'll call you when we know more."

Steve agreed. He told Chin and Kono to take photos of the people watching the fire, in case this arsonist liked to enjoy the chaos he caused. "Danny and I are going to HPD."

"We are?"

"Sure, we caught a couple of fire engine thieves, remember." Steve grinned. "We've got to book 'em, Danno."

Danny rolled his eyes and followed Steve to the Camaro.

They had time to book the young thieves, finish paperwork on another case and grab a bite to eat before Garcia's call sent them back to Manoa Elementary. The south wing was a smoldering ruin with gaping holes in the blackened walls, but the rest of the school seemed intact, though reeking with the smell of smoke.

Chin and Kono rejoined their teammates at the school. They had eaten a late lunch/early dinner after taking many photos of the fire and the crowd and talking to the school's staff members before they dispersed.

"No one knew what happened," Chin told Steve. "They were all in an auditorium discussing new state reading standards when the fire alarms went off, triggered by a smoke detector. When they left the auditorium, they saw the south wing was already full of smoke. It's just as well they left immediately." Chin pointed at the burned area closest to the unburned office. "That's the auditorium," he said.

"On a normal school day, those classrooms would have been full of kids," Kono said somberly.

"He's escalating," Danny said.

Chin's eyes were troubled. "You think it's a serial?"

"I can't see any profit motive in burning public schools. It better fits the pattern of a serial," Danny said. "Unless those guys can tell us something different."

He nodded at the two fire investigators who were still pacing around the damaged area, although the rubble was still smoking. They carried some sort of detector. They were waving a wand at the damaged area and studying the readings, talking in low voices with their heads together.

The device almost looked like a Geiger counter and Danny really, really hoped it was something else.

"Huh!" Steve said, mostly to himself, as if he recognized the device. "I'm going to see what Garcia has to tell us," he said. As he moved toward the burned building, he directed the others to talk to the witnesses.

"Not dealing with that," Danny declared, pointing at a small swarm of reporters and camera people. Most of the media mass had left, but there were three persistent TV crews that wanted to report live from the scene at the 6 p.m. broadcast.

Chin chuckled. "Why don't you talk to the firefighters," he said, pointing at the engine that had pulled up on the playground — the farthest group from the media.

"Kono, you talk to those guys." He pointed at the firemen on the other side of the scene. "I'll talk to the media."

"Are you going to answer questions, cuz?" Kono was puzzled. Steve usually made the call about dealing with the media.

"No, I'm going to ask questions," Chin said. "They've been at the fire scene. They're witnesses, too."

**To Be Continued**


	3. Questions Without Answers

**Chapter 3: Questions Without Answers**

The TV reporters perked up when they saw Chin approach. They all knew all the members of Five-0. All the cameramen turned from filming McGarrett and the arson investigators poking through the rubble and focused their lenses on Chin.

"Lt. Kelly, can you answer a couple of questions?" asked Meredith Hinton, a tanned, blonde woman who looked like a model and had degrees in journalism and political science.

"There's nothing I can say right now," Chin replied. "Five-0 was just called in on the case this afternoon and we haven't had a chance to be briefed by the Fire Investigation Unit. They've been a little busy." He gave a nod at the damaged school. "I can tell you that there were no injuries in today's fire. Fortunately the children had gotten out of school early and the staff was able to escape when the alarms went off."

"Is it true that the three school fires are the work of a serial arsonist?" asked Caleb Kahoano, a serious young man with dark hair and a long jaw.

"That has not been confirmed," Chin said firmly.

"But it's your working theory," said the Ben Tsieh, the oldest of the three reporters, a man with graying hair who had been covering Honolulu since Chin was a child.

"We work on a lot of theories," Chin said noncommittally. "But since you asked, have you seen anyone suspicious at the fires? Anyone show up more than once? People you don't know."

In a lot of ways, Honolulu was a small town. The TV crews knew all the newspaper reporters and radio news guys.

"What about that little Chinese gal?" Hinton asked her colleagues. "I never saw her before the first fire."

Tsieh pursed his lips but Kahoano shook his head. "Her name is Mary Chen. She's a UH journalism student, taking a class in crime reporting. She lives near the first school, that's why she showed up there."

The other reporters and his cameraman gave him a look, but he just shrugged. "What? She's cute. I asked her out. I picked her up outside the journalism building and saw one of my old professors who knew her. And her mom makes the best coconut cake," he assed, as if that was the clinching argument.

"Sounds like she is who she says she is," Chin said, hiding a smile, "But we'll check her out anyway."

"What about the guy with the tie?" Tsieh's camera operator said to his reporter.

"That's right." Tsieh nodded. "White guy, almost as old as I am, but a stranger. Maybe from the mainland. He wore a necktie the first two fires, but looked more casual today."

"Lemon yellow polo shirt," the cameraman said. "I remember thinking it was lucky he was a print reporter, because he'd look terrible on TV."

"But I don't know who he works for," Tsieh said. "I think everyone was covered." The reporters and camera guys compared notes and accounted for all the local newspapers and known stringers.

Chin remembered the bright yellow shirt from earlier in the day. He was pretty sure he had taken photos that included the man.

"Thank you for your help," the lieutenant said. "We'll be in touch when we know more."

"Always glad to help, Lt. Kelly," Hinton said. "Especially if we get a quote on the record in return."

Chin just smiled and went to join Kono.

* * *

Steve was still mulling over what he'd learned from the arson unit. He wasn't ready to talk to the press, so he hastily bypassed Chin and went to find Danny.

* * *

"We didn't see anything, officer," Engineer Pence from Station 25 told Kono. "We were a little busy," he added with a smile.

"Anyone in the crowd you've seen at any of the other fires?" Kono asked.

"We weren't called out for the first fire," Firefighter Nia contributed. "I think only Station 68 has been at all the fires. The first one was small and in their territory. The last two have been bigger and needed both our stations."

Kono checked with the rest of the firemen but they all told the same story.

* * *

Danny got much the same response from Station 68, but they weren't nearly as polite, maybe just because he wasn't as cute as Kono.

As Danny approached, the firefighters from Station 68 were relaxing, joking and chugging down water while they waited for the all clear. They were tall men, some bulky and muscular, some lean and rangy, but all well built, as firefighters tend to be because of all the heavy lifting they do.

Seeing the group made Danny homesick. These were guys like his Dad in his younger days, like his Dad's friends who had helped coach Danny's Little League team and helped his father assemble a swing set in the backyard one Christmas Eve.

From childhood, Danny was used to being surrounded by big, muscular guys. It was one of the reasons McGarrett hadn't fazed him when they first met.

Danny introduced himself and asked the same question Kono had. The leader of the group, whose name badge read "Gratz," sneered at the shorter man.

"We're too busy to people-watch, pal." His cronies all nodded agreement and snickered.

Danny tried a little butter. "Firemen are observant. They have to be. Think about it for a minute. Is there any person who seemed out of place? Or anything unusual about the fire?"

The man beside Gratz replied in the negative, more politely than Gratz had. His name badge read, "Bacadi."

Danny saw he wasn't going to get anything out of this crowd and he didn't really have any reason to press.

"All right. Give Five-0 a call if you remember anything."

"Five-0, that's a big job for a little man, shorty."

Steve was just coming up to his partner when he heard the comment. He paused, frowning. With all the joking, bantering and arguing he did with Danny, he never resorted to short jokes (though Danny himself occasionally did). Though he knew his partner was below average height, Steve had never thought of Danny as small, not since they met with Danny pointing a gun at him and filling the McGarrett garage from top to bottom and side to side with his forceful personality.

When Gratz' cohorts laughed at laughed at his sally, Steve saw a spark of something in Danny's eyes, but it was gone too quickly to identify whether it was outrage or mischief.

In fact, it was a bit of nostalgia. Gratz sounded just like his father's best friend Dave who had always called tagalong tyke Danny "shorty." But it was one thing for Uncle Dave to say it and another for a total stranger.

Danny half-turned and slapped Gratz' chest friendly-like with the back of his hand.

"Pretty good, big guy," Danny said, his voice dripping with condescension condensation. "Let me know when you work your way up to a second-grade joke book, I think my daughter's outgrown hers."

The other men laughed as hard at Danny's riposte as at the original quip, which made Gratz' fists bunch. Gratz' buddy Bacadi flinched just perceptibly at the mention of a daughter. He gripped Gratz' shoulder, but the burly firefighter shook him off.

Gratz advanced on Danny who put his hand on his gun and stared the fireman down. Gratz stopped. "Brave man with a gun in your hand," he sneered.

"Right. You're a foot taller and outweigh me by 100 pounds, so you think it's 'fair' if we go toe-to-toe," Danny sneered right back. He took his hand off the gun and beckoned with his fingertips. "Then come on, big man, I'm all for fair play."

The others threw a quick look at Steve, but he just crossed his arms, leaned against the engine and looked bored. Taking that for permission to squash one loudmouth detective, Gratz gave his coterie a grin and lunged at Danny. It was a big mistake to take his eyes off his opponent. Danny slipped to one side and brought his elbow up under Gratz' chin, as he hooked Gratz' ankle with his foot. The big man crashed on his belly, the air woofing out of him. Danny's hand yanking hard on his collar was actually a kindness, because it prevented the fireman's face from smacking the pavement. Then Danny knelt on Gratz' back, twisting one arm and making it obvious he could handcuff the breathless firefighter with no problem.

The arm Danny controlled had a tattoo across the back of the hand. Danny read it and snorted.

"There, wasn't that fun, 'Hot Stuff'?" Danny said, patting his opponent's shoulder.

The detective released Gratz and started to walk away. The fireman lurched to his feet and lunged at Danny's back.

* * *

_A/N: Can't really call it a cliffie when you know Steve is standing__ right there__._


	4. A Tragedy Remembered

**Chapter 4: A Tragedy Remembered**

An arm like a crowbar caught Gratz around his throat. "Sorry, Danny can't play any more. We have to go back to work," Steve snarled in Gratz' ear.

Steve released the man and moved toward Danny, but both officers kept their eyes on the volatile firefighter.

"We'll talk again when you don't have your boyfriend with you, Williams," Gratz snarled.

"I think he's delusional, Steve," Danny commented. "Did he not notice me slamming him on the ground without your help?"

"Maybe you gave him a concussion. Short term memory loss," Steve suggested. "Or maybe he's just a glutton for punishment."

"A glutton for punishment who will be enjoying his suspension if he doesn't get back to work and stop hassling police officers." Captain Harmon James scattered his men back to work with one cold glare, then he transferred the glare to Five-0. "And don't you two have something to do besides picking fights with my men?"

"Hey! Danny didn't start it," Steve protested.

"No doubt. Gratz is a bully. Having him on my shift is spoiling the rest of the boys." The captain watched his men begin to roll up the hose. "But he's brave as a lion, not afraid of fire at all. He's rescued dozens — three children at once from one house. Sometimes I think he enjoys fires a little too much."

When James moved away to consult with the captain of Station 25, Gratz drifted back as if to resume his quarrel with Danny. Bacadi followed, trying to tug him away, but it was Mick Harnett's appearance that stopped the fight before it restarted.

Harnett sent the fireman back to work with one sweeping glance. The engineer outranked the others and had an air of authority they didn't question.

"Jake, you're an idiot," Harnett told Gratz. "Do you think he only arrests children and people smaller than he is? He's used to handling big lugs like you."

Giving Danny an apologetic look, Bacadi dragged a grumbling Gratz away.

When they left, Harnett turned to the Five-0 officers. "Doesn't look like you broke him, detective."

"Next time I could just shoot him," Danny offered.

"Tempting," Harnett said with a twinkle in his eye. "But I don't think the captain would approve."

"Bacadi doesn't seem so bad."

"No." Harnett's eyes grew sad. "Blake won't interfere with an arson investigation, especially when kids are involved. His wife and daughter died in a fire while he was on duty on the other side of the island."

"That's awful." Danny could hardly bear to imagine the man's pain. The detective didn't want to think of his own little girl dying in a fire.

"Speak of the devil," Harnett muttered, as Bacadi returned without the others.

"Detective, I think I remembered something," the firefighter said. "There was a guy at the second fire, asked a lot of questions but was really vague about who he worked for. I didn't talk to him today, but I think I saw him, wearing a bright yellow shirt. Hard to miss him, really." Bacadi gave a subdued smile.

"Thanks for the information," Danny said, noting down the facts. "Did he give a name?"

Bacadi frowned in thought. "Ericson, I think."

That will make Chin and Kono happy. Nothing like a name that can be spelled twenty different ways, Danny thought with a mental sigh.

The fireman looked over his shoulder at the smoldering school.

"It must be hard," Steve said gently.

"I guess Mick told you." Harnett avoided his comrade's eyes. "Yes, little kids in danger from fire, it reminds me of my daughter. I was at work, fighting a warehouse fire. My wife went to light the stove. She didn't realize there was a leak in the gas line. She had a cold. She couldn't smell it." Bacadi paused and swallowed twice before he could continue. "She was killed in the explosion. My daughter was on the other side of the room. She had third degree burns. She screamed from the pain until they sedated her and even in her sleep she whimpered. They did everything they could, but she died three days later." Bacadi swallowed some more and wiped his hand across his eyes. "You said you have a daughter, detective?"

Danny nodded. "Her name is Grace. She's a fifth-grader at Sacred Heart."

"Treasure every moment with her," Bacadi urged. "You never know…" He turned abruptly and walked away.

Chin and Kono had come up in time to hear Bacadi's sad story. The group watched the slump-shouldered man go.

"We've got a lead," Chin said to break the mood. "The news guys remember a stranger hanging around, wore a yellow shirt today."

"Good," Steve said. "Bacadi remembered him, too, and gave us a name — Erickson."

"No idea of the spelling, of course," Danny added, but his thoughts were obviously elsewhere.

Steve clapped his partner's shoulder. "Lets get back to headquarters. I've got a lot to tell all of you." To Danny specifically, he added, "I'll drive so you can call Grace."

"When do you not drive?" Danny demanded, but he already had his phone in his hand.

* * *

The Five-0 foursome assembled around the smart table in the war room.

"I've got to go, Monkey," Danny told his daughter. "Everybody's waiting for me."

"Bye, Gracie," the other three chorused, loud enough for the girl to hear. She giggled and Danny put her on speaker so she could say goodbye to her uncles and auntie.

"Bye, Danno, love you," she finished.

"Love you more," her father replied with a smile, as he turned his phone off.

"OK, what have we got?" he asked.

"What did you learn from the arson investigators, Steve?" Chin asked.

"Our arsonist has a working knowledge of chemistry," Steve answered. "Anyone notice an unusual odor at the burned school?"

"Smelled like an Italian restaurant," Danny answered.

Kono nodded vigorously. "Garlic," she said. "It smelled like garlic."

"I've smelled it before when we were familiarized with napalm in the Navy," Steve said. "Garcia said that's a characteristic smell of burning white phosphorus."

"Phosphorus?" Danny frowned remembering long ago high school chemistry. "That catches fire when it's exposed to air, right?"

"Right." Chin remembered even longer ago chemistry lessons. "You have to keep it underwater."

"A-plus, guys," Steve answered. "So, what do you know about potassium — I mean pure, elemental potassium."

"Ooh, my turn," Kono said, raising her hand like a schoolgirl. Her chemistry lessons were more recent than Danny's or Chin's. "You do NOT put potassium in water. It reacts violently. It can even react to the moisture in the air. I remember my teacher Mr. Brennan saying it was tricky to work with it in Hawaii where we have so much humidity."

Steve clapped his hands. "Good job, class," he said. "Our arsonist is using chemicals to make a delayed action trigger, so he's far away when the fires start. Did you see the chemical detectors Garcia and Hizey were using? They detected high levels of phosphorus pentoxide and also potassium hydroxide. This tallied with their findings at the other fires. These compounds are created by the combustion of phosphorus and potassium respectively. They think the arsonist is putting potassium, probably coated with oil, in something like a pill capsule. Then the capsules are put in a glass jar of water with a significant amount of phosphorus in it. Then the whole thing is left amid flammable material, such as the paper storage closet at Sanders Elementary."

"So the time release capsule melts." Danny said, then interrupted his own musing out loud. "How long would it take? If it's a pill capsule, those start releasing medicine right away, so that wouldn't be much of a delay."

"Garcia thought it was some kind of homemade gelatin capsule that would melt gradually. He didn't think it could be a very accurate timer and he didn't think you could make one that would last more than two days. Two days was his top limit, probably a lot less," Steve said.

"OK, so the gelatin melts," Danny said.

"The potassium comes in contact with the water and bursts into flame," Kono continued.

"The violent reaction breaks the glass jar, letting air reach the phosphorus, which also bursts into flames," Chin contributed.

"The burning potassium and phosphorus ignite the paper at Sanders, the cleaning supplies at Nopu and at least three boxes of gasoline soaked sawdust hidden at various points at Manoa — and suddenly a school is on fire," Steve finished.

"That's a nasty time bomb," Danny said.

"Not really a bomb," the Navy commander said. "It's an incendiary device with a chemically activated time-delayed trigger."

Danny rolled his eyes. "That's fine for courts and reports, but are we really going to say all that every time we discuss the case?"

"I vote with Danny," Kono said. "Time bomb works for me."

"Or fire bomb," Chin added.

The military man was peeved at the imprecision, but accepted it was shorter. "Whatever we call it, it's dangerous. It burns super hot and water will only make the potassium fire worse," Steve warned.

"Aiming it at elementary schools — it's fiendish," Danny said, biting his lip, feeling the same anxiety as every parent of every schoolchild in Honolulu.

Kono put her hand on his arm. "He hasn't hurt anyone yet," she said. "We'll find him before he does."

"I don't know," Danny said. "Maybe he knew this was an in-service day, but any other day, there would have been kids trapped in that wing of the school. He's escalating, and you know what that means."

"He'll strike again," Steve said solemnly. "And he'll strike more viciously."

"And children will be in danger," Danny finished.

_**To Be Continued**_

* * *

_Serious Author's Note: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! It probably won't work. It probably will burn your fingers off. This is based on a little Internet research, seven seasons of "Emergency!" reruns, a little "Mythbusters" and memories of long-ago chemistry class. And my class was longer ago than Chin's. I am not a chemist and did not consult with a chemist in the writing of this story. This is fiction. Treat it as such. Thank you._


	5. Failure to Yield

**Chapter 5: Failure to Yield**

Though they were all anxious to start tracking the arsonist, Steve saw everyone was tired after a long and eventful day. He sent everyone home to have some dinner and get some rest.

"We need to be sharp to catch this guy," the commander said.

Everyone obeyed — sort of. Steve met Captain Garcia for dinner and took home reading material about chemical fires, which he studied until well past midnight. It was either a good thing or too bad — depending on your point of view — that Lt. Catherine Rollins was working a night shift this month, tracking terrorists who were operating on the other side of the world, or she would have attempted to distract him and help him relax. Steve's mother Doris McGarrett might also have proved a distraction, but she was visiting friends on Maui for the week — though Steve shuddered to think what friends a woman who'd been "dead" for 20 years could have.

Chin and Kono cornered one of their cousins, a retired cop turned insurance investigator. He had experience with arson fires, mostly set for profit or for revenge or for pure spitefulness. He gave them advice on what to look for if the firebug had a purpose and was just trying to make it look like a serial arsonist.

After dinner, Chin went home to his empty house and tried to sleep in his lonely bed.

In her own home, Kono tried to call her boyfriend Adam Noshimuri, but he was out of the country and the call went to voicemail. She stared at her phone for along moment, then shrugged and spent the rest of her evening planning her computer search, writing down every variation of the name "Ericson" that she could think of: With a C, with a K, with a CK, with a single S and a double S, EN and ON, and with every vowel replacing the E and the I.

As soon as he got home, Danny called his Dad. He caught Benjamin Williams just as he was going to bed, but for this the older man would stay up late. Benjamin told Danny what he knew about serial arsonists and reminded him that his "Uncle Dave" had become a fire investigator. "But wait until morning. Dave's an old man. He goes to bed with the chickens," Benjamin humorously disparaged his friend who was all of two months older than Benjamin. The father offered encouragement to his son. "You're the best, Danny. I know you and your team will catch this guy." He said it as if it was a simple truth, which was very heartening to the younger man.

Then Danny's mother finished her bedtime ritual. She came out of the bathroom washed and brushed and peeved when she realized her son was on the line. She scolded her husband for not calling her and joined the conversation on the kitchen extension.

"We were talking business, Ma," Danny protested when she scolded him, too. "I was picking Dad's brain about an arson case we're working on. I'm sure you've heard enough fire talk in your lifetime."

Raffaela conceded that was true, then worried that she'd interrupted important business.

"It's OK, Ma, I think we were done."

Benjamin agreed, so the Williams family spent a pleasant hour catching up before Danny insisted he had to leave to get some food (but really to let his parents get to sleep because it was getting close to 2 a.m. in New Jersey by that time). And when he hung up, he realized he really was hungry, because it was 8 p.m. in Honolulu, so he got a piece of his mother's lasagna from the freezer and — thanks to the microwave — had a little piece of home to help him relax. But when he went to bed, his dreams were full of fire and smoke, so he revived a trick from his childhood and pictured his father — the big, brave, fireman in his prime — dousing the blaze with an enormous stream of water. The rest of Danny's night was dreamless and restful.

* * *

First thing in the morning before he even got dressed, Danny called his honorary uncle.

"Schulman."

"Don't you have caller ID on that phone, old man?"

"Hey, Shorty! What's up?"

"I called to pick your brain, Uncle Dave," Danny answered. He told the retired firefighter about the case. Dave gave the benefit of his years as a fire investigator. His role had been to determine the cause of fires whether it was pure accident, electrical or mechanical fault, human error or human malice. He didn't pursue arsonists, but his evidence had helped catch them.

"I don't suppose I've told you anything you didn't already know, Danny," Dave said when he finished. "If these had been businesses, I'd be suspicious that there was a profit motive, but with public schools … it definitely looks like a serial arsonist, and I've learned one important thing over the years about serial arsonists."

"What's that?"

"They won't stop until you catch them," Dave said soberly.

* * *

At HQ, Kono set up the search, pairing Chin's photo of the man in the yellow shirt with her list of Ericson variations.

"Irikssen? Is that really a name?" Danny asked.

"It might be," Kono replied, getting a nod of understanding from the detective.

While she worked, the others shared the information they'd collected from their sources the night before.

Kono smirked. "So, everyone actually kept working after we went home last night."

"Pretty much," Steve agreed.

"What a sad bunch of workaholics we are," Chin said, shaking his head.

"Dedicated," Danny corrected piously. "Dedicated law enforcement professionals."

"Pathetic, lonely people with no social lives," countered Chin, the only one who would have dared comment on their single status. The other three were temporarily solo with their partners out of town, but Chin had been widowed less than a year before. His friends thought it was a good sign that he could make even a feeble joke about being alone.

There were no easy hits in HPD or DMV files, so Kono expanded the search to the other islands and the FBI database. She began to fill out paperwork while she waited for the computer to finish. The men scattered to other chores, calling chemical suppliers for lists of purchasers and calling the University of Hawaii to make sure Mary Chen really was a journalism student.

Fingers were tired from punching buttons when Kono called, "I've got something." When they gathered, she said, "The airport comes through again." The screen showed the photo Chin took paired with an airport surveillance photo. The facial recognition program highlighted the points of comparison — an 89 percent match. "You can see the tag on his luggage," she said, zooming in with a flick of her fingers. "So I checked the passenger list and I found Edmund Ariksson."

"No wonder facial rec found him before the name search," Steve commented. "We got an address?"

"Only an address in New York City," Kono said. "Nothing local. He gave an address of a cheap motel, but only stayed there two nights. He didn't leave a forwarding address."

"Do we have to import fire nuts now? What happened to the homegrown variety?" Danny exclaimed.

The Hawaiians laughed at the New Jersey native. "At least we have an imported detective to track him down," Chin teased.

"Chin, you and Kono keep trying to track down Ariksson, now that we have the proper spelling," Steve decided. "Danny and I will go back to calling chemical suppliers."

"And people think police work is glamorous," Danny sighed. He turned back to his office, but was stopped after only two steps.

"Hang on, I've got something," Chin reported. He read the information and an odd look crossed his face. "I went back to the DMV," he told his friends. "There's no driver's license on file for Edmund Ariksson, but he does have an appointment for taking his driver's test today."

"When?" Steve demanded.

"About half an hour ago," Chin answered.

"He must still be there," Danny said. "No one gets through the DMV bureaucracy in half an hour, not even when they have an appointment."

* * *

The Five-0 team went to the DMV office. Chin and Kono went inside in case Ariksson was still doing paperwork, while Steve and Danny pulled up to the area where the driving test was administered.

Steve spotted a dark-haired man in a yellow shirt getting into a blue Focus. "There!" he pointed.

The man looked around, saw the pointing finger and the badge gleaming on McGarrett's belt. The suspect threw himself into the car and peeled out, taking a hapless DMV examiner with him.

"Stop!" the woman yelled. "What are you doing?" She clutched her clipboard with one hand and the safety bar with the other.

She wasn't answered by the driver, but by the sudden sound of a siren behind her. She risked a glance back to see a silver Camaro with red and blue lights flashing in its grille.

"Stop!" she ordered again, but the panicking driver ignored her. "Please?" she begged, to no avail.

"Why do they run?" Danny asked in aggravation. "What part of 'island' don't they understand?"

"The part about not messing with the island's police," Steve answered.

The Focus cut left, bouncing across the curb at the intersection. The car roared north on a southbound street.

"One way! One way!" Danny squawked, but Steve had already swerved in hot pursuit.

Motorists heading the correct direction, dodged left and right to avoid the crazy wrong-way drivers. Pedestrians innocently crossing the street had to scramble out of the way when the Focus driver ignored a red light and plowed through the intersection. But he couldn't ignore the big rig truck that crossed (legally) in front of him.

The examiner screeched and closed her eyes. The Focus driver spun the wheel, bounced off the curb, lost control and slowly pin-wheeled to a stop with the rear wheels on a red curb and the nose of the Focus blocking a crosswalk.

The Camaro slid to a stop beside the Focus. Steve bounded out and hauled the dizzy driver out by his collar. "Edmund Ariksson…" Steve began, then he stopped and looked at his captive, who was too young and too dark-skinned to be Ariksson.

"It's the wrong guy. Danny, it's the wrong guy! Who are you?" Steve demanded of the speechless suspect.

Danny was helping the shaken driving examiner out of the car. He glanced at her clipboard. "This is Keanu Gonsalves."

"Why did you run, Keanu?" Steve demanded, giving the young man a shake.

"I didn't know the computers were stolen, I swear!" Gonsalves said, then he clapped his hands over his mouth.

"I guess you have things to explain to the authorities," Danny said. "But not to us, if you're not Edmund Ariksson."

"Wait? You weren't looking for me?" the young man suddenly regained his bluster. "Then you've got no reason to hold me!"

Danny literally laughed in his face. "On the traffic violations alone, we can hold you for months."

"Speaking of that!" The short, pudgy examiner marched forward and slapped a paper on Keanu's chest, so he had to grab it. It had black marks all over it. "Running a red light. Driving the wrong way on a one-way street," She glanced at the car straddling the red curb. "Illegal parking. Failure to yield to pedestrians, failure to yield to traffic, FAILURE TO YIELD TO POLICE OFFICERS!" she yelled. "Failure to get a driver's license!" she finished, slapping the exam for emphasis.

Back stiff with indignation, she marched away, preferring to walk back to the DMV.

"Man," the suspect said in disappointment.

"It's OK, you don't need a driver's license when you're in jail," Danny consoled him as he handcuffed him.

When Danny had Keanu under control, Steve called Chin. "We chased the wrong guy," the commander said in aggravation. "Do you have eyes on Ariksson?"

* * *

Inside the building, Chin and Kono learned that Ariksson had gone out for his driving test, so they went out to the loading area, a little surprised to see that the Camaro was gone, then not surprised to hear people talking about the exciting chase.

The cousins waited for Steve report capturing the suspect.

Instead a gray Malibu parallel parked neatly and two men got out. "Very good, Mr. Ariksson. You pass," the examiner said, handing a paper to Ariksson — who was wearing a red shirt today. Chin was staring at the man from his photo, when Steve called.

"Do you have eyes on Ariksson?"

"Uh, no problem, brah. We've got him right here," Chin said.

He and Kono approached Ariksson. Chin showed him his badge and Ariksson came readily, if not quietly. He kept asking, why? What was going on? Had something happened to his cousin?

"It's always more exciting when McGarrett does it," Chin told Kono.

"Guess the boss just has more style, cuz."

* * *

_A/N: Couldn't resist the comedy this time. Fear not, drama, action and whump to come. Not to mention more hot pursuits._


	6. What's Going On?

_A/N: Pretty much a filler chapter, but these things must be done._

**Chapter 6: What's Going On?**

"Please? What's going on?" Ariksson begged, as Chin cuffed his hands behind his back. "Did something happen to Amy?"

"Who's Amy?" Kono asked.

"My cousin, Amy Santoucci. I'm staying with her. She's pregnant — really, really pregnant," he answered anxiously.

"As far as we know, Amy is fine," Kono reassured him.

Ariksson looked relieved. "OK, that's good, but what is this all about?"

"The school fires," Chin said.

Ariksson blinked as if that was the last thing he expected. "The fires? What's that got to do with me? I'm just a reporter. Why the handcuffs?"

Chin shook his head in disbelief. "Because you're a suspect," he said, as if it should have been obvious — and it should have been.

"Me?" Ariksson squeaked. "Oh." Now he looked frightened.

* * *

Chin and Kono took the arson suspect to the Five-0 interrogation room and left him under the eerie blue light until Steve and Danny finished booking the reckless driving and receiving stolen property suspect.

Still disgusted by his mistaken pursuit, Steve charged into Five-0 with Danny beside him, just as irritated.

Chin blocked his friends from storming straight into the interrogation room.

"I don't think he's our guy," he said.

"He seemed genuinely surprised," Kono added.

"So take a deep breath or two before you tackle him," Chin told his aggravated friends.

"Right." Danny immediately swerved into the break room and grabbed two sodas from the refrigerator. The cold drinks helped cool their tempers. When they felt they'd regained their balance, they went into the blue room.

Ariksson's first words were, "Thank God. I was afraid you'd forgotten me. Who are you people anyway?"

"Lieutenant Commander McGarrett, Five-0," Steve answered. "This is Detective Williams."

"OK, Five-0," Ariksson said thoughtfully. "I'm new to Hawaii, but that's a state task force, right? What's it got to do with me?"

Danny decided on a soft approach for the moment. "We're investigating the school fires and your name came up."

Then Steve hit harder. "You've been seen hanging around the crime scenes. Admiring your handiwork?" he sneered with controlled anger.

"Admire …No! I'm a journalist. I was working."

"Not for any news agency on Oahu," Steve corrected harshly.

Ariksson's shoulders slumped. He looked embarrassed, but not guilty.

"I'm a blogger," he said, as if it was a dirty word. "Well, I'm trying to get a news blog started. I have all of seven followers so far. Look, guys, I worked for the New York Daily News for 24 years, and then I was laid off four months ago because the company was 'reorganizing.'" He sneered that word as if it was foully obscene. "I'm too young to collect retirement and too old to get another news job, even if anyone was hiring."

"So you came to Hawaii? The most expensive place to live in the whole United States?" Danny scoffed. The New Jersey transplant knew exactly how hard it was to get on your feet in Hawaii, even though he'd had a paying job waiting for him.

"I came here because my cousin offered me a place to stay rent-free," Ariksson answered, gathering his dignity. "Her husband is stationed at Fort Shafter. He was deployed to Afghanistan two weeks ago. Amy is seven months pregnant with twins and is on bed rest. She can't take care of the house and her 3-year-old son. She needed help and I needed help and we were always close as kids, so …

"But I can't just wait around until I'm old enough to collect Social Security. So I've been trying to get a blog started and I've been reporting on a few news events, like the two fires."

"Three fires," Danny corrected.

"I know. But I wasn't at the first fire," Ariksson said. "I was just getting settled in and I hadn't figured out the buses yet. It's a great system, but I need to be able to take Amy to Tripler for her doctors' appointments, so I applied for my driver's license. My old one lapsed because I really didn't need it in New York."

"Eddie, the first fire was set just one week after you moved to Oahu. Are we supposed to put that down to a coincidence?" Danny asked sarcastically.

"I guess you'll have to, because it is," Ariksson retorted. "Look, once I moved in to Amy's house, I didn't leave the base for close to two weeks. Tony, Amy's husband, was showing me around the base. I was getting settled and he was packing and there were going-away parties … I didn't have time to set a fire. And …" His face brightened all at once. "Fort Shafter is a secure base. I have to sign in and out every time I leave. And the guards check my ID."

Steve and Danny's eyes met. This sounded legit to them.

"We'll get back to you," Danny said abruptly. The Five-0 duo started out of the room.

"If possible, I'd like to get back by 3," Ariksson called. "That's when Evan gets out of daycare. The neighbor is looking after Amy, but she can't chase Evan around. And could someone call my cousin, please. She's going to start to worry when I don't get home on time. It's not good for her."

* * *

Danny Williams was constitutionally unable to let a pregnant woman worry herself sick. He personally called the Santoucci home to say that Ariksson was giving Five-0 information on the school fires and they would get him home as soon as possible.

Chin and Kono had taken Ariksson's ID when they brought him in and checked him out.

"Everything he told you about the New York newspaper is true. His editor said he wanted to keep Ariksson, but he didn't have any say over the downsizing. And he knew about Hawaii, Cousin Amy, the difficult pregnancy and the husband being sent to Afghanistan. Ariksson had been worried about her even before the layoffs. They don't have any other family," Kono reported.

Steve called Fort Shafter and soon had confirmation that Ariksson had been on base during the time the first time bomb must have been set.

* * *

"Guess we'd better take him home," Danny said. They went back to the interrogation room to set the man free.

"Do you need to go back to the DMV?" Kono asked.

"No, I signed up for a driving school, because it's been so long. They took me to the DMV and let me use their car for the test, but I don't suppose they're waiting around for me to come back when I was arrested right outside their car."

"We're sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Ariksson," Steve said.

"I understand. I was a crime reporter for several years," Ariksson reassured them. "And maybe I can help. Since I had so much time to think about it just now, there was one odd thing I noticed. The same firefighters were at all three of the school fires."

"Oahu is a small island, Mr. Ariksson," Chin pointed out. "And all the fires have been in Honolulu. It's not surprising that one station would be involved."

Ariksson was shaking his head. "I don't mean the same station, I mean the same men. The same shift. Station 68 B Shift. I don't have my notes so I don't remember all their names but there was a Captain James and Engineer Harnett, a Hawaiian name that was all L's and I's, an Asian man, a guy named Bacadi — I remember that because it reminded me of the Bacardi rum — and a guy with an ugly name that matched his temper — Grotz?"

"Gratz," Danny sighed.

"Right, Gratz. I hope that helps," Ariksson said.

The fireman's son kinda hoped it didn't, but he knew that a lot of arsonists turn out to be firefighters. A fascination with fire only needs a little twist to go from firefighting to fire lighting.

* * *

Unlike television, real life general requires multitasking, but sometimes it prevents it.

For the next two days, the Five-0 foursome was stuck in court testifying in a murder trial. Only Steve and Chin were scheduled to testify, but the others had to be in court in case the defense wanted to talk to them.

No matter how pressing their current arson case was, the officers had to sit in silence. They couldn't continue the background checks on the six firefighters. They couldn't discuss the arson case. They couldn't even think about it too much, because they had to concentrate on getting this killer put away.

And the defense attorney was incredibly long-winded. And the prosecuting attorney was running for Congress, so he wanted to have his moment in the spotlight, too. And the judge was more patient with them than Danny would have been.

"Doesn't he realize he's pissing off the jury. They want to go home, too," Danny said quietly to Kono.

"Maybe that's his plan," she answered softly. "Bore the jurors to death and get a mistrial."

Danny's snort of laughter drew a stern look from the judge and "you'd better tell us the joke later" looks from Steve and Chin. Danny pulled a tissue from his pocket and coughed into it.

"Sorry, your honor," he apologized sincerely — because, God knew, he didn't want to delay this interminable trial any further.

At lunch on the first day, when Steve hadn't even been called yet, Chin decided to get some help. He called Duke who sent over an earnest young officer, Walaka Ioki.

"Duke says you're studying to take the detective's exam," Chin said. "You've only been on the force three years."

"Yes sir. I've always wanted to be a detective and they tell me they need young faces for undercover work, so maybe this baby face will come in handy — finally."

Ioki was hardly taller than Danny and more slender. His face was round and youthful with hardly a wisp of beard. He was 24 and could pass for 16. He reminded Chin of why he'd picked rookie Kono to join Five-0.

"Alright, This isn't going to be as exciting as undercover work, but background checks are an important part of what detectives do."

He told Ioki about the six firefighters. "We want you to get everything you can without tipping them off. Don't talk to anyone without our approval, just check the records. Any background in chemistry, unusual purchases, family history... Collect as much as you can and we'll go over it when the judge lets us go."

"Yes sir!" Ioki said enthusiastically. The way Chin said "we'll" made the officer hope that he wouldn't be sent back to HPD right away. It would be cool if he had the chance to watch Five-0 work for a while.

* * *

Chin and the others felt a little better knowing that the investigation was continuing, even while they were in court. They felt even better two days later, when the judge told them at the noon break that they didn't have to come back. They walked outside smiling — and saw a plume of smoke rising two blocks away.

**To be continued, of course**


	7. Lucky Day

_A/N: A little investigation, a little banter._

**Chapter 7: Lucky Day**

The fire was at Beretania Elementary School and it was worse than the others. Forty-two children were injured, 16 seriously. Eight adults received significant injuries. The principal and one teacher were in critical condition because they had gone back in the building looking for a missing boy. It turned out he had been so panicked he had run all the way home, but the adults were badly burned trying to find him in the building.

As the information came in, the Five-0 foursome plus one grew more and more somber. The two pizzas they had ordered in remained half-uneaten. Nobody had much appetite.

It was nearly 8 p.m., when Steve got off the phone with fire inspector Captain Rafael Garcia and reported back to his team.

"Danny, you and I are going to investigate the fire scene with Garcia first thing tomorrow morning."

The Five-0 teammates nodded. Danny's family background gave him an insight into the way firemen think while Steve's military background had taught him a lot about incendiary chemicals.

Steve continued, "Chin, you and Kono are going to follow up on what Officer Ioki's discovered in his background checks. Speaking of which …" he looked a question at the young man.

"I've found a lot, maybe too much," the young man confessed. "Every man has something that could be suspicious, but there's nothing definitive about any of them.

"Backgrounds: They all have experience with chemicals, chemistry and/or incendiary devices."

"Not really shocking when we're talking about firefighters," Danny commented. The others nodded.

"Captain Harmon James was a chemical operations officer in the army," Ioki said.

"That's more tear gas, smoke and decontamination than incendiary devices," the Navy SEAL objected.

"But he has B.S. in chemistry and took a special course in explosive and incendiary devices during his Reserve training," Ioki countered. "Engineer Michael Harnett is also in the Army Reserves. His MOS is Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician."

"MOS?" Danny asked. It was obvious that it was Harnett's Army job, but Danny wanted to know what it stood for.

"Military Occupational Specialty," Steve explained. "Every soldier has one."

"What is yours?" Danny asked curiously.

"I'm not a soldier, Danny. Navy, remember?"

"Right, I keep forgetting," Danny said with exaggerated surprise. "Because you spent all your time sneaking through jungles and deserts and I always thought the Navy had to do with boats."

"Ships!" Steve said with mock exasperation.

Danny just smirked, then his eyes clouded over again as he remembered all the children in danger. "Sorry, kid," he apologized to Ioki. "I'd hate to think Mick was involved. He's saved my life twice."

"But he certainly has the qualifications," Ioki pointed out. "Pila Li'ili'i and Blake Bacadi both have bachelor's degrees in science. Li'ili'i's is in physics and Bacadi's in chemistry. Jacob Gratz' worked his way through two years of junior college with a pyrotechnic company, putting on fireworks displays. Lee Kam's family owned an industrial cleaning company, which used lots of toxic and flammable chemicals."

"So they all have a working knowledge of chemistry or explosives," Kono said.

"Correct."

"What about triggers?" Chin asked. "Serial killers usually start because of some traumatic event, serial arsonists are the same, as far as I know."

"We already know about the death of Bacadi's wife and child," Steve said. "Sounds like a trigger to me."

"True, but it was more than two years ago," Ioki said. "I'd think a trigger should be more recent than that. Now Harnett's father died recently, just two weeks before the first fire at Sanders Elementary. Fred Harnett was an Army firefighter who had to retire after he broke his back on the job. His health was always poor after that. His death might have triggered a hatred for the fire department," Ioki speculated.

Danny winced at the thought. That could have been him and his own father so easily.

"Kam's family recently lost their business, a victim of the poor economy, and his parents have moved in with Kam and his wife."

"That might cause a man to break," Steve said, thinking how happy he was when his mother found her own place and moved out of his.

"Any triggers for Gratz?" Danny asked hopefully. He really didn't like the man.

"His wife divorced him for verbal abuse and took their daughter to California," Ioki answered. "That was just a month ago."

"And might give him a reason to go after schools," Chin said with a nod.

Danny was sorry he asked. He hated to have that much in common with Gratz.

"What about the other two?" Kono asked.

"I didn't find any obvious triggers for Li'ili'i," Ioki said. "But Captain James lost a couple of Army friends to an IED about two months ago."

"I see what you mean, too much information but not enough," Chin said. "We can't rule anyone out with this."

"I'm sorry," Ioki said.

"Don't apologize," Steve said. "This is all important information that we wouldn't have without you. But we need more. Now, tomorrow …"

"Financials," Kono guessed. "Any strange purchases."

"Particularly chemicals," Chin added.

"Right," Steve said. "If you find anything substantive, I trust you to know when to stop tiptoeing around the edges and begin questioning people. Now, everyone go home and get some sleep. We're going to be busy tomorrow."

* * *

They met back at Five-0 HQ just after sunrise the next day. Steve and Danny had to be ready to meet Garcia at Beretania Elementary as soon as daylight was strong enough. Danny brought malasadas and Chin brought good, strong Kona coffee.

"If you're finished stuffing your face, we'd better go," Steve told his partner.

"Don't get cranky, just because you only had time to swim halfway to Los Angeles this morning," Danny replied, but he quickly swallowed the last of his coffee.

Steve's phone interrupted them, playing the ominous "duh duh, duh duh" theme from "Jaws." A glance at the screen showed the name "Denning."

Steve's sweeping suspicious look took in his three teammates and one confused HPD officer. "When I find out who's been playing with my ringtones…" he threatened as he stalked toward his office, hitting "accept." "Yes, governor," the others heard, as he shut the door behind him.

Chin aimed his grin at Kono but she shook her head, so they both looked at Danny. He held up his hands in a stop sign. "Not me. Grace. Though I may have made some suggestions about the ringtones to pick."

"So basically the boss is screwed," Kono laughed. "He's putty in the face of those big brown eyes."

She saw Ioki's confusion, so she fingered the keys on the smart table and brought up a picture of Steve carrying a laughing little girl on his shoulders. "Danny's daughter is soooo cute," she explained.

Steve came out of his office and was momentarily distracted by a glimpse of the picture. "What?"

"Just introducing Walaka to our family," Kono answered easily.

Steve's expression softened when he looked at the photo and Ioki knew the commander would never be able to punish the little girl for playing with his phone. Then Steve's gaze hardened again when the youngster's image reminded him of the school fires.

"All right, change of plans," the commander announced.

"Let me guess, the governor wants to bawl us out for not catching the arsonist in three days," Danny said sarcastically.

"He wants a progress report," Steve corrected.

Danny raised an eyebrow. Kono raised two.

"Which will come down to a bawling out," Chin interpreted.

"Probably," Steve agreed. As a military man he knew, sometimes you just had to let the commanding officer vent his displeasure. After all, he had a boss yelling at him, too. And in the governor's case, that boss was the entire population of Hawaii. "But once he's blown off steam, I can probably get more manpower. Enough to knock on doors. Maybe enough to tail our suspects."

"I can see it now, a parade of unmarked police cars following Engine 68 down the Pali Highway," Danny said dryly.

"Been there, done that," Kono pointed out.

Steve ignored the comments — though the image was amusing — and said, "So Danny, you and Kono go to meet Garcia. Chin, you and Ioki continue the background checks. I'll handle the governor." He pulled car keys from his pocket.

"No," Danny said firmly, snatching the Camaro's keys out of his partner's hand. "No, you do not need to drive MY car to see the governor. He's just across the street!"

"But then I need to go to Beretania," Steve complained.

"That's three blocks north of the capitol building. You can meet us there. It'll be good for you. You missed your run this morning. Honestly, you'll run for miles in training but you won't walk four blocks for work."

"Unless he's chasing someone," Kono pointed out helpfully.

"Danny, you know we need to keep a car nearby in case we're called to another crime scene," Steve said impatiently. "What if there's another fire?"

"Then you can come back here and get your truck. It's one block!" Danny said in exasperation.

"You're going to be late," Chin reminded Steve before he could continue the argument.

Steve threw his hands up in surrender and jogged out.

"I win the chance to drive my own car for the second time this week," Danny said, tossing up the keys and catching them again. "Must be my lucky day."

"Four blocks," Kono pointed out. "You get to drive it four blocks."

"A win's a win, Kalakaua. You coming?" The two detectives headed for the door.

"Are they always like this?" Ioki asked.

"That was nothing," Chin assured him. "Come on, let's beat him to the evidence. We're driving the fastest machine." He cracked his knuckles ostentatiously and began to type on the smart table.

**TBC**

* * *

_A/N: The one block business is based on my previous visit to Hawaii. The building they identify as "Five-0 Headquarters" is across the street from the Iolani Palace, which backs up to the state capitol. I say previous, because I am in Hawaii now, but I haven't gotten back to Five-0 HQ yet._

_And did anyone find the "lucky day" comment to be vaguely ominous? You should._


	8. Fire Trap

**Chapter 8: Fire Trap**

Garcia and his team had been through the fire scene the night before, taking photos and collecting evidence, but he wanted to look at it again in daylight and had been willing to walk Five-0 through it when McGarrett asked.

Garcia's assistant Bronson Hizey was a tall, stoop-shouldered young man with a shy smile. His thick-lensed glasses continually slid down his nose and he habitually pushed them up with one finger without even noticing he was doing it.

He stammered a little when he met Kono, but not because she was a beautiful woman. He was just as starry-eyed about Danny.

"You guys are Five-0? It's an honor," he said enthusiastically. "You do such great work." He ducked his head shyly. "I wanted to be a cop since I was little, but I couldn't pass the physical." He hitched up his the left leg of his pants and showed an artificial limb from the knee down. "Car hit my bike when I was 12," he said matter-of-factly. "So I became a forensic scientist."

"And a darn good one," Captain Garcia said supportively.

Bronson grinned. "But I still love hearing stories about police work and Five-0's the ultimate."

Danny hid a grin at Bronson's fan-girling. "Did you get McGarrett's autograph when you met him?"

"Oh, I couldn't. It wouldn't be … Do you think he would?" he finished wistfully.

"I'll make sure of it," Danny answered without cracking a smile. He wouldn't tease Bronson about his hero worship — but he would tease Steve!

They started in the back of the cafeteria where the first fire broke out. Kono and her camera followed Bronson with his chemical sniffer. Danny stuck with Garcia while they made a visual examination of the fire scene and collected physical evidence.

"It looks the same as the last school," Garcia said.

"But with more points of origin," Bronson contributed from the other side of the room.

"All the reports say the fire broke out here in the back of the cafeteria and then — while the evacuation was in progress — fires started in the office and …" Danny could hardly say it "… two kindergarten rooms."

"They were probably meant to start at the same time, but chemical triggers aren't that precise," Garcia said soberly.

The fire investigator showed how the chemical time bombs were placed near plastic drums of cooking oil, which essentially flooded the kitchen with fire.

Danny used a probe to turn over a piece of curved plastic. "Look at this."

Garcia sat that the plastic had broken in a nice, neat line. "Looks like someone scored the oil bucket with a knife or box cutter to weaken it."

Garcia collected the plastic in an evidence bag. They went on gathering anything that looked significant.

"We'll check out the kindergarten rooms," Bronson said after a whispered suggestion from Kono. She wanted to spare Danny from looking at the charred toys and tiny melted chairs.

"All right, Garcia agreed. "We'll look at the office."

Danny mouthed "thanks" at Kono, though he knew he'd have to look at the kindergarten rooms eventually. Kono winked. She had his back.

The kindergarten rooms were just as heartbreaking as Kono had feared. She took photos while Bronson studied the point of origin, the back of a cupboard full of jars that had held turpentine, which did not belong in a kindergarten classroom. Burned remnants of Thanksgiving holiday decorations showed it wasn't a cupboard that would normally be opened in March.

As Kono took photos, she saw one cupboard door sagging partway open, blocked ironically by a toy fire truck that was miraculously undamaged. Inside she could see smoke patterns, so she nudged the cupboard door open to take photos.

Bronson saw the fire engine start to move and knew in an instant that something was off. He realized the toy was plastic, which should have melted. He took two quick steps and glimpsed a thread running from the toy into the cupboard, something Kono couldn't see from her angle.

"Booby trap!" he shouted. He grabbed Kono and threw her aside, just as the cupboard exploded.

* * *

The blast shocked the men in the other room. Danny staggered and caught himself on a desk. Garcia twisted as he fell awkwardly. Danny heard a snap. Garcia collapsed with a bitten off scream.

His shinbone was visibly broken, making an unnatural bulge in the skin, but Garcia ignored his pain and called Bronson on his radio. When he got no response, Danny tried Kono's cellphone, but again no answer.

"Find out!" Garcia gasped.

Danny scrambled over debris to a window that looked in the direction of the kindergarten rooms. Threads of black smoke rose lazily upward, getting thicker by the minute.

Danny cursed. "The kindergarten's on fire. We've gotta go!" He caught the fire inspector under the armpits and dragged him backward through the outside door. The injured man grunted and cursed the pain when his broken leg bounced off debris, but he didn't protest the hasty evacuation.

Danny hauled the man across the parking lot and left him beside his car. "Call 9-1-1!" he yelled unnecessarily.

"Get them out," Garcia yelled back, also unnecessarily.

* * *

Governor Denning spent a solid half an hour listening to McGarrett's summation of the paltry progress made on the case, and then berating McGarrett for the lack of success. Steve stood at attention and let his commanding officer get it out of his system.

"I've got every parent on the island calling my office demanding that we catch this arsonist. I put your team on it, but you're not even scaring the firebug! He struck right in our backyard this time. I could see the damned fire from my office window!" Denning pointed dramatically out his window, then he stared. Steve followed his gaze and saw smoke rising in a black plume. It was the same school — and Kono and Danny were there!

"Call the fire department," Steve ordered his boss. The commander ran out without another word and Denning didn't try to stop him, he was too busy dialing 9-1-1.

* * *

_A/N: Bet you didn't expect Kono whump. Not that Danny's out of the woods._


	9. Racing to the Rescue

_A/N: Sorry, I almost forgot to post the promised whump. But it is still Tuesday here. Barely._

**Chapter 9: Racing to the Rescue**

Danny peered through the smoke-darkened windows and saw his two friends lying motionless on the floor, Bronson on top of Kono. Flames danced near their feet, eerie lavender flames growing larger as a pool of liquid spread.

The school had been vandalized several times, so security bars had been installed on the windows — a big red bar made them easy to open from the inside, even for a toddler, but from the outside you'd need power tools.

Danny circled away from the blocked windows and ran to the other side of the building where the doors were. There were two long rooms that were separated into four by panels that slid in tracks. The door closest to where he'd seen Kono was blocked. He kicked and kicked and broke the lock, but the door only opened four inches, just enough to get a blast of smoke in his face. Peering through the gap, he could see a tangle of desks, half-melted metal and plastic wedged against the door.

Cursing, he ran back to the partially open door that Kono and Bronson must have entered by. It was clear on the far side of the room from where the two bodies lay, dangerously far in a room now full of smoke —smoke that smelled of garlic, the scent of homemade napalm, Danny remembered.

Danny ripped off his shirt, tying it around his nose and mouth, then he plunged into the murk.

A simple chain of children's classrooms became a minefield in the smoky gloom. Burned supplies and backpacks tripped him up; toppled chairs whacked his shins with their tarnished metal legs. He slipped and slithered across a landslide of books to reach Kono's side.

She was unconscious. Bronson's tackle had cracked her head against the floor with enough force to knock her out. But Bronson was moving weakly on hands and knees, trying to pull Kono away from the blazing cupboard wall. He seemed unaware that his own foot was on fire.

Danny tore off his makeshift mask and used it to smother the flames, realizing this was Bronson's artificial limb and it was severely damaged.

"Get Kono," Bronson choked, holding his neck with his left hand.

While Danny wrapped his cloth around Kono's face and hiked her up into a fireman's carry, Bronson choked out an explanation of what had happened. "Booby trap. Trip wire. Trap, Danny. It was a trap for us."

"The door was blocked," Danny said. He hauled Kono to the closest window, the camera still around her neck banging into his back, and banged on the safety bar, but it was broken. He could see the pieces of the mechanism sharp and gleaming, broken on purpose.

"Come on," Danny told Bronson in a voice already gritty with smoke. "Back the way we came. It's the only way out."

He held Kono in place with one hand and pulled Bronson along with the other. The younger man staggered three determined steps, broken prosthesis and all, then an odd look crossed his face. "Danny..." If the smoke hadn't made the room so dark, Danny would have seen bright blood fill his mouth. "Go … I can't make it. Save Kono." The last words were a choked whisper, then Bronson fell headlong, pulling Danny down to his knees.

Danny shouted, a harsh bark of sound rather than a proper name, but the man did not move. The detective couldn't carry Bronson and Kono. With a sob, he staggered to his feet and dragged himself and Kono toward the door that seemed desperately far away to the oxygen-starved rescuer.

* * *

Steve ran, cursing Danny for depriving him of the Camaro, though when he looked at the traffic backed up on the street, he realized he was making just as good a time on foot.

The SEAL put all his training to use, running as fast as he could without straining, so he'd have something left when he got to the fire. He crossed a side street, cruising between cars stuck at a stoplight.

One block.

He leaped clean over a laughing little boy who pulled a wagon heedlessly into the running man's path. A dog on a leash barked and lunged, but his owner held him back.

Steve ran.

Two blocks.

He found the cause of the backup. Two cars had collided in the intersection, possibly distracted by the rising plume of smoke from the elementary school. Steve jumped and slid across the conjoined hoods. "Get them out of the way," he yelled at the arguing drivers. "Fire trucks coming!"

Several blocks behind Steve, red lights whirled and the horn of big yellow Engine 68 roared in frustration.

The men scrambled for their drivers' seats, as Steve tore away, diagonally across the intersection. Cars coming the other way swerved and honked.

Then Steve ran into the school parking lot toward the Camaro and an official HFD van. An older Lincoln Town Car stood next to them with a man opening the trunk — Mick Harnett!

* * *

Garcia sat against the HFD van with his obviously broken leg stretched out in front of him.

"What happened?" Steve demanded, ignoring the surprise presence of Harnett for the moment.

"Williams and I were in the office. We heard an explosion from the kindergarten rooms where Kalakaua and Bronson were. I was so surprised I fell like an idiot and broke my leg. Williams dragged me out here and went to see if the others were OK. It's been too long, McGarrett," Garcia said frantically. "And there's too much smoke. Too much!"

Garcia slammed his fist on the ground in frustration.

"They may have been overcome by that toxic smoke," Harnett said calmly. His experienced eye — and nose — told him a lot about the fire.

He pulled a huge first aid kit out of the trunk and thunked it down where Garcia could reach it. Then he took out two turnout coats and two metal air tanks complete with masks.

"You're coming with me?" he asked Steve, though it wasn't really a question. He knew Steve too well.

Steve answered by putting on the heavy protective coat and shrugging into the straps of the air tank that Harnett held for him. Harnett hung the mask around Steve's neck and finally put a helmet on his head. In a moment more, the experienced firefighter wore the same outfit.

"I'd carry more gear," Harnett commented as he put on the helmet. "But the wife insists she needs room for groceries."

"What are you doing here?" Steve asked.

"I was on my way home from the station when I saw the smoke. Come on, let's get our friends out," Harnett said.

As they approached the smoke-spewing door, Harnett grabbed Steve's arm in a vise-like grip. "Whatever we find in there, don't take off the mask," Harnett ordered. "You won't help Danny or the others if you collapse from the smoke, too. Got it?"

"Got it," Steve said shortly.

The fireman tightened Steve's mask and his own, then nodded. The men plunged into the smoke-filled room.

* * *

**TBC**

_A/N: Has everyone gone to to vote to design a Five-0 episode? Talk about Fanfic! I'm rooting for the snow shovel as the murder weapon. A snow shovel in Hawaii? I can hear the Danny rant now._


	10. Smoke Inhalation

**Chapter 10: Smoke Inhalation**

Danny staggered, trying to keep his left arm across his nose and mouth while using the other to hold Kono in place while her camera dug into his back with bruising force. It was taking a ridiculously long time escape from a room that kindergartners scampered across every day, but the smoke was blinding and the damaged, jumbled furniture added to his confusion. He knew he'd lost his way when he stumbled headlong into one of the bookcases that lined the walls between the doors.

He bared his teeth, planted his left hand on the wall for guidance and plodded forward. He was getting weaker — he could feel it. His mind brought up all the horror stories his father had told about people lost in their own homes because of confusing, suffocating smoke. Doggedly, Danny dragged Kono forward, headed toward the square of light that appeared and then was immediately obscured by two bodies.

Breathing easily and unconfused, Mick and Steve homed in on the wavering Danny immediately. Harnett gently took Kono from him and Steve grabbed his arm to lead him to safety, but Danny resisted.

"Bronson," the detective gasped, pointing back toward the fire blazing on the far wall. In the light from the flames, Steve could see the figure huddled on the floor.

"I've got him."

When Steve reached Bronson, he knew the man was dead. The Navy SEAL knew dead, but the SEAL also would not leave a man behind. He slung Bronson's body over his shoulder and returned to Danny who was crawling doggedly on hands and knees toward the door.

Steve caught him under the arm and they stumbled out of the smoke into the light, where Harnett met them. The firefighter helped Danny out to the parking lot where Engine 68, manned by half of B Shift and half of C Shift, had pulled up and was laying hose. Steve saw Captain James directing the firefighters including Gratz, Bacadi and Li'ili'i, as well as four strangers who must be from C Shift. Harnett joined his comrades at the engine.

"All the suspects in one place," Steve thought angrily, trying to see if any of them seemed to enjoy the fire, but all seemed to be going about their business professionally — except Gratz who gave a smirking glance at Danny who was on hands and knees, coughing uncontrollably.

Steve's fist bunched, but he was distracted when an ambulance pulled into the parking lot.

Paramedics Ab Riley and Margie Chandler hauled equipment from the ambulance and ran to the group on the scrap of lawn beside the parking lot. Danny was down on hands and knees hacking as if trying to expel a lung. Kono was beginning to stir, coughing just a little. She had a large red lump on her the back of her head and her eyes were confused when she finally opened them. Bronson lay as still as death.

"Smoke," Steve said tersely, when Riley looked at Danny, then the commander shook his head sadly when the paramedic's eyes went to Bronson.

Riley nodded understanding, but had to check for himself. He shoved an oxygen bottle in Steve's hands and handed the mask to Danny. The detective clutched at the mask, inhaling clean oxygen greedily, then moved the mask aside in order to cough out bad air and hack up greyish, smoke-tarnished mucous. Inhale from the mask, exhale outside, repeat. His gasping began to ease a little and he gestured Riley away, pointing at Bronson.

Riley moved quickly to the potentially more critical patient, but stethoscope and heart monitor agreed with the Navy SEAL. Bronson Hizey was already gone. Riley sighed and pulled a sheet over the body.

Danny closed his eyes. Steve gripped his shoulder. Danny pulled away, not wanting comfort right now. He gestured imperiously at Kono, who was being checked by Chandler.

"You don't even need to talk to argue," Steve said, trying to lighten the mood.

Danny frowned, started to speak, but that triggered another coughing fit, so he just made a rude gesture at his partner and gestured even more emphatically at Kono.

"Like I said," Steve replied, but he went to the women.

Riley came back to check Danny, ignoring a similar motion toward Kono.

Margie has everything under control," Riley told Danny. "Give me a minute to check your vitals. If it's just smoke, then oxygen is the recommended treatment and I'll leave you to it," he promised.

Danny accepted the inevitable and held out his arm for the blood pressure cuff. Riley found the blood pressure a little high and pulse a little fast, but within the normal range for someone who had been through a frightening escape. In this case, high and fast were better than low and slow. The carbon monoxide he had to have breathed hadn't had time to depress his system.

"OK, now spit for me," Riley commanded, holding out a clean piece of gauze.

Danny obediently hacked up a wad of mucous and spat it into the gauze. Both men studied it. It was a little gray from particles Danny had inhaled, but not very dark.

"If it's not black, that's a good thing," Riley said cheerfully, putting the gauze away carefully for a doctor to study. "Now talk to me."

"What do you want to chat about?" Danny said, getting out a whole sentence before he had to cough and controlling the cough with a return to the oxygen mask.

Riley noted that the detective's voice was more hoarse than normal, but seemed strong enough.

"Headache?" Riley asked.

"Yes."

That was to be expected from oxygen deprivation and/or carbon monoxide exposure. Riley looked down Danny's throat and up his nostrils. "No sign of swelling. That's good." Then he washed out Danny's red, watering eyes with saline solution.

Danny finally chased Riley away to look after Kono. The detective sat morosely on the curb looking at the covered body. He had tears in his eyes and didn't try to pretend they were from the smoke.

Steve sat beside him, again offering comfort by his presence. "It wasn't your fault, Danno."

Danny gave him a look that disagreed, but he couldn't dispute it out loud without coughing. He pulled the oxygen mask off to sadly say, "He wanted your autograph."

**TBC**


	11. Cause of Death

**Chapter 11: Cause of Death**

Steve went to get a statement from Garcia who was being treated by a second ambulance team.

Danny watched Kono answer Riley and Chandler's questions. She seemed fully aware and her vital signs didn't seem to alarm the paramedics, which relieved Danny's mind.

The paramedics lifted her carefully to a gurney, despite her protests that she could move herself. That put her closer to Danny.

"You OK?" he asked, his voice muffled by the mask.

She looked over at Danny and said, "Thanks to you." She wasn't coughing nearly as much as he was, Danny thought with a little jealousy. Bronson's body had covered her face at first, and then Danny had wrapped his shirt around her, so she didn't take in as much smoke.

He gave her a thumb's up. She held up the remains of Danny's shirt.

"I owe you, brah," she said.

"Just don't buy me a flowered one," Danny answered, pretending she was talking about the shirt and not her life.

"You want a flowered shirt?" Kono said, pretending to not understand his muffled words. "Big pink and purple hibiscus flowers. Got it."

They grinned at each other in perfect understanding. Kono lay back and winced when her sore head touched the soft pillow.

"How's your head?" Steve asked, coming over after talking to Garcia.

"Hurts. Dizzy." She swallowed thickly. "Sick."

"It's all to be expected from a concussion," Riley said. "Lie still, close your eyes and don't try to sit up. They can give you something for the nausea when we get to the hospital. OK?"

Kono nodded shortly, unwilling to open her mouth again.

Steve helped Riley load Kono's gurney in the ambulance while Margie carefully walked Danny, who was clutching his oxygen bottle like a baby.

"How do they look, Ab?" Steve asked his paramedic friend.

"Not a doctor, Steve," Riley reminded him. "My guess is that Kono is suffering from a concussion with minimal smoke inhalation. Danny got a lot of smoke, but I don't see any sign of burns in the nose or mouth and his mental faculties don't seem to be impaired. The hospital will want to do tests to be sure, but in my personal judgment, they'll be OK in just a day or two."

Riley wouldn't say such things to civilians, but he and the Five-0 crew had been through a lot together. He was the third person in the pit of murky death that Harnett had rescued Steve from.

Unprofessional or not, Steve, Danny and Kono were all relieved to hear his opinion.

After Chandler climbed out to go to the driver's seat, Steve slammed one of the back doors shut, but Danny waved him to stop before he could shut the other. Still sucking on the oxygen, the detective fished car keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Steve.

"Memory unimpaired," Danny said through the mask. "Unlike yours."

Steve made a face at him and slammed the door.

* * *

The ambulance carrying Garcia pulled out, followed by Chandler and her Five-0 passengers. Steve watched them roll away — no lights or sirens, which was encouraging. The body at his feet — which was being photographed and studied by the crime scene technicians — was not encouraging at all.

Steve thought about Kono with blood smeared down the side of her face, Danny with his unflagging voice stolen by smoke, Garcia with his leg at an unnatural angle and Bronson lying still and growing cold in a school parking lot.

And he thought about Mick Harnett, first person on the scene when the first was often a guilty party. Harnett had helped save Kono and Danny, but that didn't mean he wasn't the arsonist. Steve felt sick at the thought that Harnett might be one of those people who started a fire to be the heroic rescuer.

The commander tried to process the FUBAR his morning had become. He rubbed his head with both hands as if he could scrub away the terrible thoughts.

Delayed by the traffic jam, the medical examiner's van pulled into the parking lot. Max was worried to see Steve holding his head.

"Commander? Steve?" he said, hesitant to be so familiar. The whole parking lot smelled of smoke, but the odor on Steve was particularly strong. "Are you all right? Were you in the fire?" Max cautiously touched the taller man's arm and Steve came back to the present.

"Hi, Max," he said, as weary as if he'd put in an all-nighter though it was just past noon. "No, I'm OK. I was geared up when I went in." He gestured at the turnout coat he'd folded neatly on the trunk of Harnett's car with the mask and tank holding them in place. "But Kono and Hizey were in there when the fire started and Danny went into get them out. Danny got a lungful of smoke and Kono got a concussion. Hizey's dead and Danny blames himself because he couldn't carry him and Kono." Steve sighed. "And now I've got to go tell Chin what happened to his cousin."

"I'm sorry," Max said sincerely. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Just help us catch this guy, Max," Steve said. "Help us catch the arsonist before he kills again." He clapped the M.E. on the shoulder, gave one last glance at Harnett operating controls at Engine 68 and drove off in the Camaro.

Max nodded to himself and pushed Bronson Hizey's autopsy to the top of the priority list.

* * *

Contrary to popular opinion (and Steve's), Danny could be quiet when he needed to — when he was holding a sleeping baby girl, when he was listening to a frightened victim give a statement, when he was creeping up on heavily armed bad guys — and when doctors told him if his oxygen saturation didn't improve they would have to shove a giant tube down his throat. Intubation is an effective threat. Danny sincerely wanted to avoid it.

So, with a pulse ox biting his finger, Danny concentrated on breathing from his oxygen mask and coughing and spitting disgusting mucous into an emesis basin. Joy.

They'd given him medicine to make his cough "more productive," which meant juicier and more disturbingly strident. Double joy.

But it seemed to be working and the nurses were nearly ecstatic about his spit. (Nurses are weird.)

Steve sat with him a while, but the coughing and spitting were really disgusting to everyone but nurses. He was relieved when Chin stuck his head in the door.

"The doctors are done with Kono. They're moving her to a room now," he told Steve. "How are you doing, Danny?"

Danny coughed and spit to clear his voice. "Better," he said, sounding like he'd been gargling gravel. "Kono?"

"Mild concussion," Chin answered. "There was some shrapnel in her left arm and leg from the explosion." He held up an evidence bottle with five nails of various sizes in it. "The doctors dug them out and took X-rays to make sure they got it all, but now she's ready to give a statement."

"OK. I'm going to go talk to Kono," Steve said, pointing at the door as if Danny didn't know what "go" meant.

Danny coughed up a particularly loud loogey, making Steve and Chin wince. The patient waved his friends away, glad of the chance to brood, but he didn't have privacy for long.

Max Bergman stuck his head through the door. "May I come in?"

"Max," Danny greeted him in his hoarse, mask-muffled voice. "Bring me another pineapple?"

"No, I did not repeat my previous faux pas," the M.E. said in his precise fashion. "You will be happy to know I have settled on grapes as the proper gift for someone in the hospital."

Danny gave him a thumb's up.

"However, in my haste, I neglected to stop at the market on my way here. Though I did not bring a piece of fruit, perhaps I can give you peace of mind," Max said earnestly. "Commander McGarrett indicated that you blame yourself for Mr. Hizey's demise."

Danny closed his eyes in a pain that had nothing to do with his sore throat.

"I want to assure you that you are not at fault," Max said. Danny looked as if he would argue, but Max forestalled him by displaying a photo on his phone. It was a two-inch masonry nail, the thick shaft covered in blood. "This is what killed Mr. Hizey, detective. The bomb that exploded was packed with nails. Mr. Hizey's body was riddled with them. This one was the cause of death. It pierced his neck and punctured his carotid artery and made a hole through to his esophagus. The more he moved, the more the artery tore, causing him to bleed to death down his throat. It was not the fire that killed him, Danny. It was not the smoke. It was the explosion."

"But…"

Max bore on relentlessly. "There was no first aid you could have performed in a burning building. You can't put a tourniquet around a bleeding neck. Even the paramedics would have had trouble preventing the bleeding. You did everything possible. The explosion killed him. The arsonist killed him. Not you."

* * *

_A/N: Sorry this chapter is late. It's my cat's fault._


	12. Witness Statements

_Warning: Spoilers for my story "Boom."And note, I am not a doctor._

* * *

**Chapter 12: Witness Statements**

Danny closed his eyes. He let his guilt wash away, and let the anger roll in like a returning wave. The arsonist deliberately set a trap to kill the fire investigators. Danny wouldn't rest until the killer was brought to justice — man's justice or God's justice, Danny wasn't particular.

Max watched anxiously until Danny opened his eyes again. The M.E. saw new resolve in the detective's eyes.

"Thanks, Max." Danny's words puffed in the oxygen mask. "I feel better already."

The chubby doctor brightened. "I am glad to help. Now I must find Commander McGarrett and make my report."

Danny sent him to Kono's room. He knew all the others would want to hear Max's news.

* * *

"That fits with the shrapnel the doctor's took out of Kono," Chin commented. He showed Max the jar of nails. "All these came out of Kono's left arm and lower leg."

"Mr. Hizey was hit all across his back and right side," Max said.

They didn't need computer diagrams to imagine the scene. They could all picture Bronson diving at Kono, covering her body with his own. Kono closed her eyes and said a prayer for her savior.

"I wish I could help as much as Max did," she said regretfully. "I didn't see anything. Bronson yelled booby trap and dove at me. I hit my head on the floor and the next thing I knew, Mick Harnett was carrying me over his shoulder and laying me down on the grass."

"You didn't see anything?" Steve pressed.

Kono shook her head. "The only thing I remember is a toy fire truck. But I was taking photos. Maybe the camera saw something I didn't notice. I still had it in the ambulance." She looked around vaguely as if it would suddenly appear.

And it did. Chin pulled it out of the reusable shopping bag that he had used to carry a change of clothes for Kono and Danny. "The nurse gave it to me with the rest of your stuff. I already downloaded the photos onto my pad and sent them to Ioki."

Kono nodded, then closed her eyes. The pain of her headache fought with drowsiness from the painkiller. Chin patted her knee.

"Get some sleep, cuz. Ioki and I will check out the photos."

Kono nodded without opening her eyes.

* * *

The men left quietly.

Max had one more piece of news for McGarrett. The arsonist had killed two now. The Beretania principal had died of her injuries earlier in the day.

After delivering that sobering news, Max went back to work. Steve and Chin went to get a statement from Danny. But roadblock stood in their way — black, six feet tall, with a neat mustache and a decidedly negative attitude.

"Absolutely not!" Doctor Ronald Sampson said firmly. "His progress looks good, but no talking for the rest of the day."

"We need to know what Danny saw," Steve protested. "We can't waste time tracking down this killer."

"And how much time will it waste if we have to intubate Detective Williams, or put him in a hyperbaric chamber?" the tall black man said.

"It's that bad?" Chin asked. Danny had seemed mostly OK to him.

"It could be," the doctor said firmly. "He needs to rest and let his throat recover and get his oxygen levels back to normal. They are improving, but they are still lower than I would like. I don't want him talking until tomorrow, at the very least. Certainly not making a long statement. It could do irreparable harm to his trachea and his vocal cords."

Steve could only accept the doctor's decision. There was no way he would risk his friend's health, but how could he keep Danny quiet? That was problematic at the best of times, but Max had said that Danny looked less guilty and more angry after receiving the news about Hizey's cause of death.

Steve knew his partner. Danny would be determined to help catch the killer and the best way he could do that was make a statement. But he couldn't.

Dr. Sampson left Steve and Chin in the hall while he went in to examine his patient. Steve paced in frustration like a caged lion. Nothing Chin said soothed the commander's worries.

Nurse Julie England approached the two men in the hall. "Kono is awake and wondered if you were still here," she told Chin.

Chin hesitated to leave his anxious leader. Steve waved him toward Kono's room. "Go, I don't need backup for this," he said with an attempt at humor.

The nurse knew the Five-0 team from Danny's previous stay, when his car blew up. She understood Steve's worry about keeping his partner from hurting himself.

"I remember Danny from the last time. It was hard to keep him quiet, even with a concussion and amnesia," Julie said. "Dr. Sampson and I will make sure he understands how serious this is." She smiled and started into the room where she was going to draw blood (literally, not figuratively). "He has to behave and be a good example for that cute daughter of his."

Grace! Steve remembered with sudden panic that Danny was supposed to pick his daughter up today because her mother and stepfather were at some conference on Kauai. The day had gone by like a piece of film that had slipped off the projector wheel, first dragging and stuttering, then speeding, only to catch and drag again. What time was it?

Looking at his watch, Steve was relieved to see he had half an hour until school got out. He could pick Grace up, but he really should talk to Danny first.

* * *

Steve's phone chimed as he was making his 14th circuit of the hall, pulled in two directions at once. He had several jobs to do and couldn't do any of them right now. All he could do was pace. Distracted, he answered his phone without noticing the ringtone or looking at the ID.

"McGarrett."

"Hey, sailor, I have to be at the base at 16:00, but I have time for 'lunner.' Care to meet me somewhere?" Catherine Rollins said.

"I can't," Steve said regretfully, a third direction pulling him now.

"Because of the fire?" Catherine asked with quick concern. "I heard there was another. Was the governor pissed?"

"Worse," Steve said heavily. "Danny and Kono were in there. They're going to be all right, but they'll be spending at least one night in the hospital."

"Is there anything I can do?" Cath asked. "I could pick you up some food."

Pick up! That was the answer to one of his problems. "If you could pick up something else, it would be a weight off my mind."

"I can do that. What do you need?" As she listened, Catherine's eyebrows rose, but she nodded. "Shouldn't be a problem. We'll be there shortly."

* * *

When Grace Williams walked down the school steps, she saw the turquoise Corvette, but didn't pay any attention to the classic car that was older than her father, until the driver climbed out and called her.

Lieutenant Catherine Rollins wore her dress blues and looked every inch the professional Navy officer. Grace's eyes widened fearfully, wondering why her Uncle Steve's girlfriend was here. Had something happened?

The girl ran to the woman, "Aunt Catherine, what's wrong?"

Catherine smiled gently at the honorary aunthood. "It's OK, Grace," she said in hasty reassurance. "Steve asked me to pick you up. Your father's in the hospital, but it's not bad. He was in a fire and breathed in too much smoke. The worst part is, he's not supposed to talk," Catherine said, putting mock horror in her voice.

Grace giggled, but hesitated to go with Catherine. The girl didn't know her well and Grace had been kidnapped by a man masquerading as a police officer less than a year before.

To be honest, Catherine was glad to see her hesitation. She didn't want children to be too trusting.

The lieutenant crouched beside the girl and spoke softly so no one else could hear. "Steve told me your safe word is Derek Jeter."

Grace relaxed then. Only her father and Five-0 knew that word. Her mother and stepfather used a different one.

"Do you know how Danno got hurt?" she asked, as she followed Catherine to the pretty car.

"By being a hero, of course," Catherine answered.

**TBC**


	13. The Best Medicine

**Chapter 13: The Best Medicine**

Dr. Sampson left Danny's room. "You can see him now," he said.

Steve couldn't look at Danny when he entered the room. "Don't say anything," he said, keeping his eyes on Nurse Julie who was putting labels on blood vials. "I know you want to give your statement, I know you want revenge for Bronson and Kono, but you can't talk now. Dr. Sampson said it's critical that you stay quiet …ow!"

Something hard hit him on the temple. A ballpoint pen clattered to the floor and rolled against his foot. Rubbing the side of his face, Steve finally turned to look at his partner, who made a ferocious, aggravated grimace. Danny held a clipboard in his lap and pointed demanding the return of his pen.

Steve gave a sheepish smile. He was so used to Danny talking, he'd never considered a written statement. Danny rolled his eyes.

* * *

Julie exchanged Danny's oxygen mask for nasal oxygen cannulas. "Your stats are improving, but the 'no talking' rule is still in effect," she reminded her patient before she left the room. "Dinner in about an hour. If you're good, I'll bring you my own personal stash of honey for the Cream of Wheat." After all, Danny was only on a soft diet, not a bland diet. And honey was always good for sore throats.

Danny put his hand over his heart, swearing to be good. Julie chuckled at the charades and left.

Danny really was being good. He only said one word to Steve, "Grace!" and tapped his watch.

"It's OK, I've got it handled," Steve said. "Cath is picking her up."

Danny wiped his hand across his brow, miming relief.

As if on cue, Steve's phone began playing "Love Shack." He rolled his eyes. "Who keeps messing with my phone! I'll bet it's Kono."

Danny grinned and tried to look innocent. Steve wasn't likely to suspect him, because Danny was less tech savvy than his teammates (who all had much more training than the Jersey cop ever had). But Steve really should have known better. The first thing he'd learned about Danny's technical abilities was that Danny could change ringtones. After all, phones don't come with the "Psycho" theme pre-installed for ex-wives.

Steve answered the call, then nodded at Danny. "They're on the way."

Steve handed back the pen and Danny resumed work on his magnum opus, while Steve occupied his time changing all his ringtones back. He did leave Kono's as "Surfer Girl," though. It was too appropriate.

Danny worked for several minutes on his statement, written in his surprisingly neat block printing developed during years of filling out police reports by hand in Jersey. He read it over thoughtfully, tapping his teeth with the back of the pen, then, unable to think of anything to add, he handed the paper to Steve, who had lost his anxious impatience once all his Williams' problems were taken care of.

Most of Danny's statement was what Steve expected — the fire, the rescue and Bronson's collapse. A couple of things stood out, because Danny had double-underlined them with extra heavy strokes. He had seen lavender flames — lilac flames are a hallmark of a potassium fire — which should be confirmed by the new HFD fire investigators. Steve hadn't noticed the unusual color when he entered the fire. Either the color had been obscured by the volume of fire and smoke or the potassium had been consumed by that time.

But the other point that Danny made in his report — the section that was written in large, dark letters — was Bronson's dying words, that this had been a booby-trap meant to catch the fire investigators, Five-0 or both. The quote, "It was meant for us," was written with such intensity that the paper was heavily scored and torn in places.

Steve had seen it before. In the Middle East, terrorists liked to set off a bomb in a crowded marketplace and then set off another after law enforcement and rescuers arrived.

"It's another step up," Steve said. "You were right. He's escalating."

Danny made a zooming gesture with one hand. Steve nodded. "Yeah, he's escalating fast."

* * *

"Danno!" Grace burst through the door with Catherine chasing after her. "Aunt Catherine said you can't talk!"

"Can," Danny corrected, relieving his daughter's mind with that one hoarse word.

"But he's not supposed to," Steve finished, backing up his partner just like Danny taught him. "Just like when you had tonsillitis," he reminded his niece.

She nodded. "But you're OK?" She studied her father, seeking reassurance.

He pulled her into a hug. She smiled, but wrinkled her nose. "Danno, you smell all smoky," she said, pinching her nose. Danny hung his head miming shame.

"So do you, sailor," Catherine said. She'd been about to hug Steve, but backed away to keep her uniform unscented. He understood and stepped away.

"Our noses have gotten used to it," Steve said ruefully. "I haven't had a chance to change and they haven't let Danny get cleaned up."

Grace promptly trotted into the bathroom, dampened a couple of paper towels and brought them back to wipe Danny's face and neck and his forearms when he held them out.

"Is that better?" Danny pulled her into a hug again and this time she kissed him because he didn't taste smoky now.

Catherine excused herself, because she had to get to work. Steve leaned toward her, not touching, and she gave him a chaste peck on the cheek, even though he still tasted smoky.

"What happens now?" Grace asked, after the woman left.

Steve held up Danny's report. "The plan is, you do your homework and we'll do ours. Then when they kick us out, you and I will get something to eat and then go back to my place for a sleepover. How does that sound?"

Grace and Danny clapped their hands in unison, which made Steve laugh, which surprised him because he hadn't felt like laughing since the theme from "Jaws" played on his phone — which reminded him ...

"Who keeps changing the ringtone on my phone?" he demanded.

* * *

He had forgiven Gracie for playing with his ringtones on a visit to his house, because she made big sweet puppy eyes at him. And when she threw her father under the bus for advising her what songs to use, Steve forgave him, too, because puppy eyes on a guy lying in a hospital bed were even more effective.

When Chin finally left Kono sleeping, he heard laughing coming from Danny's room and saw Nurse Julie make a determined charge toward the door.

"He's not supposed to be talking," she said sternly.

And he wasn't. In fact, Grace had pasted a bright pink Post-It Note across his lips to remind him. It didn't stick very well, so he had to keep pressing it back into place, but that just made the reminder more potent. The fact that the note had SHHH written across it, just made the scene even funnier, but not so funny that Steve should be doubled up with laughter.

"What's going on here?" Julie asked, less stern than before.

"Tell that part again," Steve instructed his partner. "The part with the dog."

Grace obediently started the story again. "Daddy was chasing a suspect down the street." Danny's left hand pursued his right hand, little finger feet scissoring rapidly.

"The bad guy jumped a fence and Daddy jumped after him." Right hand went up over Danny's blanket covered knee and down again. Left hand mimicked the hop. Then both hands froze. Fingers splayed out in matching horror. Danny's eyes went wide and his mouth formed an "O" causing the Post It Note to fall in his lap.

Steve clutched his sides, laughing breathlessly at the pantomime.

"There was a big dog in the yard," Grace said calmly. Danny gestured frantically at her.

"There was a ginormous dog in the yard!" the girl said with more animation.

Danny's shoulders hunched and his teeth bared in a snarl. His hands backed away. Then one hand became a snapping dog's mouth and then both hands were fleeing, hopping up and over the knee to safety. The hands stopped and faced each other. Danny wiped his brow in relief, then the left hand pounced on the right hand and flattened it to the bed.

"And that's how Daddy caught the bad guy," Grace finished, twitching her T-shirt as if curtseying.

Steve was laughing hard — and boy, he really needed a good laugh. Danny and Grace grinned in triumph at a tale well told. Julie and Chin smiled at their antics.

"All right, it's time for our patient's dinner," Julie said. "And the rest of you better get something to eat, too," she added in motherly fashion.

"What do you say, Grace. We'll make a food run then you can have a sleepover at my house?" Steve said.

She cheered and voted for chicken nuggets.

"Do you need to call your mother?" Chin asked. Danny and Rachel weren't on the best of terms right now, with a custody hearing looming. This might give Rachel more fuel for her "Danny is too dangerous to be around Grace" argument.

But Grace shook her head decisively. "She can't call. Mommy and Stan are at an important business meeting. No cellphones allowed. They won't be done until after my bedtime, so we said good night this morning." She smiled remembering that bit of sweet silliness. "I'm only supposed to call the hotel if it's a real emergency." She hesitated, because maybe her father in the hospital counted.

"Not for you," Uncle Chin reassured her calmly. "Your father's going to be fine and you have your doting uncles to take care of you."

"No problem at all," Steve agreed, with Danny nodding emphatically.

Grace gave Danny a hug goodbye, but before she could climb off the bed, a stranger in a police uniform entered. She froze, but Danny patted her shoulder in reassurance.

"I'm glad I caught you," Ioki said in relief, but he stopped when he saw the child and the nurse.

Chin made the introductions. "Grace, this is Officer Ioki. He's been helping us on this case. Walaka, this is Danny's daughter, Grace."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Miss Williams," Ioki said politely, holding out his hand.

Grace was charmed to be treated like a grownup. She shook the hand and said she was happy to meet him, with some of her mother's British primness.

"Grace, why don't you and I get your father's dinner tray, while the men talk business," Julie suggested, seeing that the HPD officer was bursting with news.

The girl went willingly with the nurse.

"What have you got?" Steve asked Ioki when the men were alone.

"And how'd you get it so fast?" Chin added in admiration.

"I got a little lucky," Ioki admitted. "The photos you sent me showed a toy fire engine and when I blew up the image, I could see a thread running into the cupboard."

"The trigger for the bomb," Steve said.

Ioki nodded. "I recognized the fire engine," he said. "It's my nephew's favorite toy. My brother got it at Aloha Hardware last Christmas. It's exclusive."

"There are five in the Honolulu area," Chin said. He knew the island inside and out.

"They have centralized bookkeeping and inventory and my brother's best friend is the systems manager. And he has two kids at Nopu Elementary." The site of the second fire.

"So he opened his systems to you," Chin made a not very wild guess.

"Thirty-two of these trucks have been sold in the last two months, but one stood out. Three days ago — after the third fire but before this one — the Waikiki store showed the purchase of one toy fire truck and three boxes of nails and nothing else," Ioki said.

"Any more information about the sale?" Steve asked, all business now.

Ioki nodded. "It was a credit card purchase," he said. "The name of the cardholder is Michael Harnett."

"Mick," Danny said sadly and closed his eyes.

* * *

**TBC, of course**


End file.
